50-634: Dino Stalker is a light gun shooter video game developed by TOSE and published by Capcom exclusively for the PlayStation 2 . It is an offshoot of the Resident Evil light gun shooter games, but based on the story of the Dino Crisis series. Though it can be played by other means, a light gun is recommended, as the game is one in a number of Capcom games that try to bridge the gap between light gun games and traditional games that allow
100-458: A first-person perspective for aiming, though some games may allow the player to switch to a third person perspective in order to maneuver the protagonist. Gun games had existed in arcades before the emergence of electronic video games . Shooting gallery carnival games date back to the late 19th century. Mechanical gun games first appeared in England 's amusement arcades around the turn of
150-575: A "Renaissance" in the popularity of arcade gun games. Like Lethal Enforcers , the game was inspired by the Clint Eastwood film Dirty Harry as well as a coffee advertisement in which a can of coffee grew larger in a gun's sights. In Virtua Cop the player had to shoot approaching targets as fast as possible. The acclaimed Time Crisis by Namco, released for Japanese arcades in 1995 and ported to Sony 's PlayStation console in 1996/1997, introduced innovations such as simulated recoil and
200-524: A bead on a dino." Davis noted that the best option was to utilize both the DualShock and the GunCon 2 simultaneously, "But even this configuration does not compensate completely for the game's inherently slow movement or the inability to look up or down, and you'll spend an equal amount of time-fighting the controls as you will fighting dinosaurs." Davis also criticized the game's poor graphics, and wrote that
250-477: A foot pedal which when pressed caused the protagonist to take cover . The game's light gun controller, the GunCon , was also acclaimed. Namco also released Gun Bullet for Japanese arcades in 1994 and was ported as Point Blank for the PlayStation in 1998, a 2D sprite-based game featuring a unique minigame structure and quirky, humorous tone. The game was critically acclaimed and received two sequels, both for
300-443: A glance, and easily shared." In February 2018, Eurogamer's parent company, Gamer Network , was acquired by Reed Exhibitions, a division of RELX . In September 2021, the community forum for Eurogamer closed, with the site recommending other platforms such as Discord instead. In the same month, Eurogamer also launched a supporter program, offering readers an ad-free experience and access to paywalled content. In May 2024,
350-506: A light gun, the use of more conventional input methods has been deemed inferior. Light-gun shooters typically feature generic action or horror themes, though some later games employ more humorous, self-referential styles. Light-gun shooters primarily revolve around shooting large numbers of enemies attacking in waves. The protagonist may be required to defend themself by taking cover, or by shooting incoming thrown weapons, such as axes or grenades . The player may also compete against
400-452: A light gun. Light-gun shooters typically employ " light gun " controllers, so named because they function through the use of light sensors . However, not all "light-gun shooters" use optical light guns, but some may also use alternative pointing devices such as positional guns or motion controllers . Mechanical games using light guns had existed since the 1930s, though they operated differently from those used in video games . Throughout
450-482: A lot of coherence." Davis criticized the game's selectable control schemes. Playing exclusively with the GunCon 2, Davis wrote that "using a single hand to move and shoot is difficult and will wear out your arm more quickly than your average light-gun game." Davis also criticized the alternative method of using a standard DualShock controller: "The targeting reticle is far too sensitive, and you'll often find yourself dealing with bouts of overcorrection while trying to draw
500-545: A niche appeal for fans of "old school" gameplay . "Light-gun shooters", "light-gun games" or "gun games" are games in which the protagonist shoots at targets, whether antagonists or objects, and which use a gun-shaped controller (termed a "light gun") with which the player aims. While light-gun games may feature a first-person perspective , they are distinct from first-person shooters , which use more conventional input devices. Light-gun games which feature "on-rails" movement are sometimes termed "rail shooters", though this term
550-604: A period but experienced a small renaissance with the release of the Nintendo Wii in 2006. The system's controller, named the Wii Remote , popularized motion-based gameplay. With the release of the Wii Zapper and third party light gun shells, various developers took the opportunity to release various light gun games on the platform, including Ghost Squad: Evolution , Gunslingers, Dead Space: Extraction , The House of
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#1732786642764600-521: A special gun he gained, finally battling and defeating their intelligent leader, Trinity, which controlled the other dinosaurs. But despite falling in love with Paula, Mike must go back to just before his imminent death. Paula then edits the timescale to make the bullets vanish to prevent Mike from dying, and he is rescued by men on a boat, realizing that Paula was the one who saved him. Dino Stalker received "mixed" reviews, according to video game review aggregator Metacritic . On release, Famitsu gave
650-467: A time. The game takes place across various landscapes, including desert and jungle. A two-player mode is unlocked upon completion of the game. The game's storyline focuses on Mike Wired, a World War II pilot. After being shot down during combat over the Atlantic, Mike is transported into the dinosaur-populated future from Dino Crisis 2 . Mike Wired, a World War II era fighter pilot is about to die in
700-609: A writer for British magazine PC Gaming World ; Patrick "Ghandi" Stokes, a contributor for the website Warzone; and Rupert "rauper" Loman, who had organised the EuroQuake esports event for the game Quake . It became the official online media partner of the 2002 European Computer Trade Show . Eurogamer hosts content from media outlet Digital Foundry since 2007, which was founded by games journalist Richard Leadbetter in 2004. In February 2015, Eurogamer dropped its ten-point scale for review scores instead highlight some games
750-454: Is also applied to other types of shooters featuring similar movement. The light gun itself is so termed because it functions through the use of a light sensor: pulling the trigger allows it to detect light from the on-screen targets. Targets in light-gun shooters may be threatening antagonists such as criminals, terrorists or zombies , or they may be inanimate objects such as apples or bottles. Although these games may be played without
800-609: Is incredibly limited. Though the game is loosely affiliated with the Dino Crisis games, there's not a lot here to draw fans of that series, and with several superior light-gun games available on the PlayStation 2, there's little reason for anyone without a masochistic streak to play this game." Louis Bedigian of GameZone praised the music and graphics and wrote that the control scheme "isn't bad, but it does take some getting used to. It's worth getting used to though, because this
850-442: Is some comic relief, and for the pure sake of flat-out lunacy, this game may be worth your while." Perry also criticized the game's poor graphics, writing that it "looks like it was designed as a PlayStation game and that it only recently made the transition to PlayStation 2. [...] It's an average looking game at best, and that's putting it nicely." Ryan Davis of GameSpot called the game's premise "bizarre and convoluted" with "not
900-496: Is the best dino-hunting game I've played since Dino Crisis 2." Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer called it "easily the best yet" in the Gun Survivor series, and praised the game for "some stunning environments," but criticized its short length and some of the "rather bland" dinosaur designs. Light gun shooter Light-gun shooter , also called light-gun game or simply gun game , is a shooter video game genre in which
950-526: The GunCon 3 for the PlayStation 3, which was supported by Time Crisis 4 , Time Crisis: Razing Storm and Deadstorm Pirates . The Time Crisis and House of the Dead franchises continued to receive acclaimed installments, with the arcade machine for the latter's House of the Dead 4 Special featuring large screens enclosing the player, as well as swivelling, vibrating chairs. Incredible Technologies /Play Mechanix released Big Buck Hunter , which
1000-588: The Nintendo Switch have been used as a light gun substitute for various games, such as The House of the Dead: Remake (2022), though they are less precise than the Wii Remote due to their sole reliance on gyroscopic sensors for aiming. Eurogamer Eurogamer is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 alongside parent company Gamer Network . In 2008, it started in
1050-479: The "woman drawing water" statue and an Umbrella building). It was followed by Resident Evil: Dead Aim . Dino Stalker is a first-person shooter in which the player must use various weapons to defend against dinosaurs while progressing through the game. Dino Stalker supports the optional use of the GunCon light gun accessory. The player can use a variety of weapons throughout the game, including bazookas, machine guns, and shotguns, but can only carry one weapon at
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#17327866427641100-547: The 1960s. Between the late 1960s and early 1970s, Sega produced gun games which resemble first-person light-gun shooter video games, but were in fact electro-mechanical games that used rear image projection in a manner similar to a zoetrope to produce moving animations on a screen . It was a fresh approach to gun games that Sega introduced with Duck Hunt , which began location testing in 1968 and released in January 1969. It had animated moving targets which disappear from
1150-406: The 1970s mechanical games were replaced by electronic video games and in the 1980s popular light-gun shooters such as Duck Hunt emerged. The genre was most popular in the 1990s, subsequent to the release of Virtua Cop , the formula of which was later improved upon by Time Crisis . The genre is less popular in the new millennium, as well as being hampered by compatibility issues, but retains
1200-611: The 20th century, and before appearing in America by the 1920s. The British "cinematic shooting gallery" game Life Targets (1912) was a mechanical interactive film game where players shot at a cinema screen displaying film footage of targets. The first light guns appeared in the 1930s, with the Seeburg Ray-O-Lite. Games using this toy rifle were mechanical and the rifle fired beams of light at targets wired with sensors. A later gun game from Seeburg Corporation , Shoot
1250-534: The Bear (1949), introduced the use of mechanical sound effects. By the 1960s, mechanical gun games had evolved into shooting electro-mechanical games . A popular sophisticated example was Periscope (1965) by Namco and Sega , with other examples including Captain Kid Rifle (1966) by Midway Manufacturing and Arctic Gun (1967) by Williams . The use of a mounted gun dates back to a Midway mechanical game in
1300-595: The Dead 2 & 3 Return , The House of the Dead: Overkill , Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles , Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles and Wild West Guns . Sony responded by releasing the PlayStation Move , a motion-based controller for the PlayStation 3 that could also be fitted into a light gun shell called a PS Move Sharp Shooter. This accessory allowed developers to also release light gun games on Sony’s platform. Additionally, Namco released
1350-788: The Dead: Scarlet Dawn in 2018, Elevator Action Invasion in 2021 and Enter the Gungeon House of the Gundead in 2023. On PC, various companies offer light gun hardware solutions for light gun enthusiasts, such as Sinden Light Gun , Ultimarc Aimtrak and Retroshooter , in addition to retrofitting classic light gun hardwares for consoles such as Wiimote with Mayflash Dolphinbar and Gun4IR . Besides emulating classic light gun games, players can also find modern light gun releases on Steam, such as Railbreak , BangBang PewPew , BioCrisis and Blue Estate The Game . The Joy-Con of
1400-598: The arcades and the PlayStation console. In 1995, Atari Games released the successful Area 51 arcade light-gun game, which featured red and blue HAPP 45. caliber pistol-like light guns and the use of full-motion video (FMV) pre-rendered graphics. Some games attempted to incorporate elements of first-person shooter (FPS) or survival horror games through the use of less restricted character movement or exploration, with varying degrees of success. Between 1996 and 1997, 3D light-gun shooters gained considerable popularity in arcades. Popular arcade light-gun shooters at
1450-496: The clock, however, with some games also featuring boss battles. Games may also reward the player for accurate shooting, with extra points , power-ups or secrets. Games which do not pit the player against antagonists instead feature elaborate challenges constructed mainly from inanimate objects, testing the player's speed and accuracy. More conventional games may feature these types of challenges as minigames . Light-gun shooters typically feature "on-rails" movement, which gives
1500-550: The early 1960s. The Magnavox Odyssey home video game console in 1972 had a light gun accessory , in the production of which Nintendo was involved . In the arcades, light-gun shooter video games appeared in 1974, with Sega's Balloon Gun in August and Atari 's Qwak! in November. The use of a mounted gun in arcade video games date back to Taito 's Attack (1976). However, light-gun video games were not able to achieve
1550-463: The formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. From 2013 to 2020, sister site USGamer ran independently under its parent company. Eurogamer (initially stylised as EuroGamer ) was launched on 4 September 1999 under company Eurogamer Network . The founding team included John "Gestalt" Bye, the webmaster for the PlanetQuake website and
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1600-478: The game a score of 30 out of 40 in Japan. Douglass C. Perry of IGN criticized the game's controls: "After the first mission, your hand is in pain. The Carpel Tunnel syndrome you didn't have before throbs in fiery extended agony as if to say hello, and you have just started. [...] In the dozen-plus levels you play through, the slow-paced, awkward control is not only annoying but it hurts you. [...] But at least there
1650-488: The genre up until the mid-1990s. Midway's Revolution X (1994) was a Three-player co-op game with digitized graphics like their earlier hit Terminator 2 . In 1995, Konami released Crypt Killer ( Henry Explorers in Japan), which supported up to three players and was a modest success. Sega's Virtua Cop , released in arcades in 1994, broke new ground, popularized the use of 3D polygons in shooter games, and led to
1700-535: The gun crime found in the United States and in which civilians cannot legally own guns, more realistic light guns are widely available. Light-gun rail shooters began declining in the late 1990s as FPS games became more popular. Light-gun shooters became less popular in the 2000s, with new games in the genre seen as "old school", such as Raw Thrills ' Target: Terror (2004) and ICE/Play Mechanix's Johnny Nero Action Hero (2004). The genre went dormant for
1750-528: The light gun genre is maintained in virtual reality, arcade and PC emulation. Various VR games with light gun gameplay elements are released regularly after the release of Oculus Rift in 2016, such as Space Pirate Trainer, Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission, Zombieland VR, Blood & Truth, Under Cover and more. Despite the decline of the arcade industry, arcade continues to see periodical exclusive light gun releases such as Jurassic Park Arcade and Time Crisis 5 in 2015, Point Blank X in 2016, House of
1800-501: The mid-1980s. In the late 1980s, Taito 's arcade hit Operation Wolf (1987) popularized military-themed light-gun rail shooters . Operation Wolf had scrolling backgrounds, which Taito's sequel Operation Thunderbolt (1988) and Sega's Line of Fire (1989) took further with pseudo-3D backgrounds, the latter rendered using Sega Super Scaler arcade technology, with both featuring two-player co-op gameplay. SNK 's Beast Busters (1989) supported up to three players and
1850-536: The only notable sound effect throughout the game "is the 'reload' command you'll hear whenever you're out of bullets, and this is only because the computer voice noticeably mispronounces it." Davis concluded that the game would have been "infinitely more playable had Capcom discarded the Gun Survivor control scheme and just left the movement control on rails, like all other light-gun games. But with its needlessly frustrating control scheme intact, Dino Stalker's appeal
1900-522: The player control only over aiming; the protagonist's other movements are determined by the game. Games featuring this device are sometimes termed "rail shooters", though this term is also applied to games of other genres in which "on-rails" movement is a feature. Some, particularly later, games give the player greater control over movement and in still others the protagonist does not move at all. On home computer conversions of light-gun shooters, mouse has been often an optional or non-optional replacement for
1950-579: The player greater range of control over their movements in the game. Dino Stalker is the third entry in the Capcom's Gun Survivor series after Resident Evil Survivor 2 – Code: Veronica . Although the Gun Survivor games are an offshoot of the Resident Evil series, Dino Stalker is the only game in the series without any ties to Resident Evil (with the exception of two easter eggs in Stage 5,
2000-416: The player no control over the direction the protagonist moves in; the player only has control over aiming and shooting. Some games, however, may allow the protagonist to take cover at the push of a button. Other games may eschew on-rails movement altogether and allow the player to move the protagonist freely around the game's environment; still others may feature a static environment. Light-gun shooters use
2050-399: The popularity of electro-mechanical games. In the 1970s, EM gun games evolved into light-gun shooter video games. Light guns used in electronic video games work in the opposite manner to their mechanical counterparts: the sensor is in the gun and pulling the trigger allows it to receive light from the on-screen targets. Computer light pens had been used for practical purposes at MIT in
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2100-455: The primary design element is to simulate a shooting gallery by having the player aiming and discharging a gun-shaped controller at a screen . Light-gun shooters revolve around the protagonist shooting virtual targets, either antagonists or inanimate objects, and generally feature action or horror themes and some may employ a humorous, parodic treatment of these conventions. These games typically feature "on-rails" movement, which gives
2150-441: The reviewer felt particularly strongly with labels such as 'Essential', 'Recommended' or 'Avoid'. The change was driven by doubt about the score system's usefulness and its desire to be delisted from review aggregator Metacritic because of its "unhealthy influence" on the games industry. In May 2023, Eurogamer returned to scoring reviews, opting for a five-point scale due to them being "universally understood, simple to take in at
2200-497: The same level of success as their earlier electro-mechanical predecessors until the mid-1980s. Light-gun video games became popular in arcades with the Nintendo VS. System arcade releases of Duck Hunt (1984) and Hogan's Alley (1984), with Duck Hunt also becoming popular on home consoles following its 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) release. Light guns subsequently became popularly used for video games in
2250-421: The screen when shot, solid-state electronic sound effects, and a higher score for head shots . It also printed out the player's score on a ticket, and the sound effects were volume controllable. Throughout the 1970s, electro-mechanical arcade games were gradually replaced by electronic video games, following the release of Pong in 1972, with 1978's Space Invaders dealing a yet more powerful blow to
2300-456: The sky in 1943, as bullets approach him before he can parachute to safety. Mike mysteriously somehow ends up being transported to a time with flying prehistoric reptiles, which he manages to kill. He meets Paula, a survivor from Dino Crisis 2 who speaks some English but is not able to speak long sentences. Traversing through the various stages under the guidance of Paula's father, Dylan, Mike defeats many different groups of savage dinosaurs using
2350-488: The time included Sega's Virtua Cop 2 (1995) and The House of the Dead (1997), Namco's Time Crisis , and Police Trainer (1996). The most successful light-gun horror game series is The House of the Dead (1997 debut), the popularity of which, along with Resident Evil , led to zombies becoming mainstream again in popular culture . In 1998, Midway released their third successful light-gun game called CarnEvil , which featured over-the-top black comedy humor,
2400-442: The use of the shotgun-like light gun which pumps to reload, and the use of blood and gore like Mortal Kombat . Light guns were suppressed for a time in the United States after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and its attendant controversy over video games and gun crime . Since the late 1980s, light gun controllers have been generally manufactured to look like toys by painting them in bright colours. In Japan, which lacks
2450-450: Was a modest success. Midway 's arcade hit Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) combined Operation Wolf 's scrolling with Operation Thunderbolt and Line of Fire 's two-player co-op along with the use of the use of realistic digitized sprite graphics. In 1992, Konami 's Lethal Enforcers further popularized the use of realistic digitized sprite graphics in light-gun shooters, with digitized sprites remaining popular in
2500-584: Was highly successful and spawned a number of sequels and console ports. Sega released Ghost Squad in 2004, notable for featuring unique machine guns with realistic recoil and an additional trigger for other in-game actions. The light gun shooter genre fell out of popularity on home consoles when the industry transitioned from the Wii and Playstation 3 to Wii U and Playstation 4 in 2014. Other factors which contributed to this declining popularity includes incompatibility with modern high-definition televisions . Today,
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